Continuing with my decision to make videos in places where I wouldn’t normally have considered filming I decided on Leicestershire for this one. I am not familiar with this county at all save for a small section in the North West that borders on to South Derbyshire, which I generally pass through when I am working in that area. During my research of Leicestershire I thought the area known as Charnwood Forest might be a nice place to film. Places like Bradgate Park and Beacon Hill caught my attention, so I looked to featuring both those locations in my Leicestershire video.

I headed out on the morning of Saturday 9th March to begin the day’s filming in Charnwood Forest. I found a car park just off Roecliffe Road at Swithland Wood South, which cost £1.00 to park all day. I filmed several scenes in Swithland Wood and then crossed Roecliffe Road to enter Bradgate Park. I shot a great number of cracking scenes around here before heading up to Old John Tower. There were lots of people up here so it was difficult to shoot my scenes without featuring other people in them, but I still captured some superb shots. I walked over to the war memorial and then eventually descended into Newtown Linford. I ate my sandwiches here before re-entering Bradgate Park to follow the main drive beside the River Lin.

As I entered Bradgate a member of the park staff suggested where I could capture shots of the deer. After walking along the drive and filming the ruins of Bradgate House I saw some deer just beyond here. I was very lucky to get some great shots of the deer especially at one point when they galloped across the grounds in front of me. Passing the visitor centre and Cropston Reservoir I left Bradgate Park for the day to reach Swithland Wood where I started. I just wanted to film one more location before finishing my day’s filming, which was at nearby Beacon Hill Country Park. It started to drizzle a little when I got here and became very windy, but I captured some good shots for the short time I was there.

I had no particular idea of the kind of music I was going to compose for this film, which I entitled “Charm of Charnwood”. However, a few chords came into my head when I first arrived in Swithland Wood to start filming that morning, so like I did in a couple of earlier recent films I filmed myself humming those notes so that I wouldn’t forget them. These chords developed into a theme for the film with a few modifications here and there.